Whatever Happened To Gina Torres After Suits?
Gina Torres was already a Hollywood icon by the time she was cast as Jessica Pearson in "Suits." A stint in the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live" and several other smaller roles in the late '90s eventually led her to the "Matrix" franchise, where she played Cas in the sequels "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions." Her TV career also took off dramatically in the early 2000s, with a recurring role as ruthless assassin Anna Espinosa in "Alias," leading into perhaps Torres' most famous character to date — that of first mate Zoë Washburne in the short-lived space western series "Firefly."
But with the recent "Suits" renaissance launching the legal drama to the top spot on Netflix years after it ended, the actor's time on "Firefly" may finally be usurped. Jessica Pearson isn't just Torres' longest-tenured role, but also one of her best. The law firm magnate is a force to be reckoned with in the USA Network series, equally as fearsome in the face of adversity as she is loyal to those on her team. "Suits" doesn't always give Jessica an easy time of it, but she manages to emerge from the chaos with her head held high, leading the rest of the crew behind her.
Whether you're a longtime "Suits" fan or someone who just hopped on for the show's streaming resurrection, you might be wondering what Torres has been up to since leaving the series. To put it simply, she's been quite busy.
Torres got her own Suits spin-off
Though she's a central figure for most of "Suits," Gina Torres' Jessica Pearson doesn't make it to the finish line of Season 9. The character leaves the firm she helped create in Season 6 and moves to Chicago, but that's not where her story ends.
Long before streaming success made a "Suits" cinematic universe appealing, Torres led a network spin-off bearing her character's last name: "Pearson." The series follows Jessica on her Chicago escapades, where she starts by working as a fixer of sorts for the mayor's office. This job leads her into a tangled web of corrupt politics, legal treachery, and FBI subterfuge. Unfortunately, the spin-off only lasted 10 episodes before being canceled.
"Pearson" ran in tandem with the final season of "Suits" in 2019, and it seems likely that USA Network was hoping it would catch on as a successor. Keeping fans of the original show on the network for years to come would have been a huge boon, but it seems it wasn't meant to be. According to TVLine, the show's only season drew roughly half the ratings as its parent series' farewell tour. Still, it's a great watch for fans of "Suits" or the Jessica Pearson character specifically. Reviews were quite favorable from both critics and fans, and Torres earned particular praise across the board for her commanding presence and charisma.
She's still a big name in science fiction
Though she's most famous for her on-camera roles, Gina Torres is also an accomplished voice actor. One of her first big roles after leaving the main cast of "Suits" came in the Adult Swim animated comedy "Final Space." Though it ran for a full three seasons, "Final Space" never gained that much fame, perhaps because of how crowded the niche genre of animated adult sci-fi comedies has been over the last several years. Similar shows like "Rick and Morty," "Solar Opposites," and "Star Trek: Lower Decks" all got bigger marketing pushes and more attention. However, "Final Space" still earned great reviews and developed a dedicated fan base.
Torres played various characters in the show, most notably providing the voice of Helper Hula in Season 1. Given her history with franchises like "Firefly" and "The Matrix," many will always see her as a sci-fi star, and it seems from her recent credits that Torres still embraces that moniker. The cast of "Final Space" set her alongside other genre regulars like former "Doctor Who" lead David Tennant, voice acting legend Keith David, "The Walking Dead" fan-favorite Steven Yeun, and fellow "Firefly" alum Alan Tudyk.
Additionally, Torres played the role of Lauren Weber on HBO's android action drama "Westworld." The character only appears in a few episodes, but she plays an important part in the story of Jeffrey Wright's Bernard Lowe.
She played a key role in Amazon's Selah and the Spades
Though she's always been known better for her television work, Gina Torres has never stopped acting in movies — something that has continued in the streaming era as well. In 2019, she appeared in Amazon Studios' coming-of-age drama "Selah and the Spades," a teen drama set at a boarding school where drug-dealing, duplicitous factions of students fight for power. If you enjoy shows like "Euphoria," you may get a similar itch scratched by this film, which garnered impressive reviews after debuting at the Sundance Film Festival.
Torres plays Maybelle Summers, mother to the eponymous Selah. She only appears in a couple of scenes, but they're pivotal moments that drive home exactly why Selah seems dedicated to a self-destructive path. As the quasi-kingpin of her boarding school, Selah makes many enemies and even more bad decisions. Through Torres' terrifying portrayal of her mother, we also see that Selah's home life — while idyllic at face value — wasn't much less stressful. Fans of Torres will appreciate seeing her portray such a detestable character here, even if her screen time is limited.
Torres joined the Disney universe - several times
In addition to her various forays into science fiction and legal dramas, Gina Torres has lent her talents — specifically her voice — to the wonderful world of Disney on several occasions. She played the character of Chatana on the popular Disney Channel show "Elena of Avalor" from 2019 to 2020. That's not her only credit in the Disney princess realm, either, as Torres also played the Queen of Ingvarr in "Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure" — a TV continuation of the hit Disney 2010 film "Tangled."
Still, that's not the end of Torres' time with the House of Mouse. Around the same time that she was recording lines for the two princess series, she also made her "Star Wars" debut as the bounty hunter Ketsu Onyo in "Star Wars Rebels." Torres reprised the role for the animated short series "Star Wars: Forces of Destiny." Ketsu is a capable warrior, skilled pilot, and an old friend of fan favorite Sabine Wren, who recently made her live-action debut in the Disney+ series, "Ahsoka." Given how central Sabine continues to be in the franchise and how many different points in the timeline Lucasfilm is currently working in, it's possible that Torres could one day bring her animated character to live-action "Star Wars." Given her extensive history in the sci-fi genre, she'd surely be a great fit.
She's started doing more video game voice acting
As well as her voice acting work on television, Gina Torres has lent her talents to some prominent video games over the past few years. Her history in the medium goes back to the early 2000s MMORPG game "The Matrix Online." Curiously enough, Torres didn't portray her movie character in the game but rather voiced Niobe, who was played by Jada Pinkett Smith in the films.
Her most prominent video game role to date is probably that of Ikora Rey in Bungie's "Destiny" games — a character she voiced as recently as 2019 in the "Shadowkeep" expansion of "Destiny 2." In 2018, Torres voiced Superwoman in "Lego DC Super-Villains," following up on her 2011 role as Wonder Woman in "DC Universe Online."
Most recently, Torres brought her vocal talents and physical acting skills to the fantasy shooter "Immortals of Aveum" in 2023. It's become more and more common in recent years for games to use famous actors' likenesses as well as their voices, often employing facial or full performance capture to do so. Thus, fans of Torres will immediately recognize her General Kirkan character upon playing the game. Kirkan was featured heavily in the game's advertising campaign, and she serves as a mentor to the player character throughout the story.
Torres appeared in Netflix's The Perfect Find
In 2023, Gina Torres took her talents to the rom-com space with Netflix's "The Perfect Find," directed by Numa Perrier and based on the novel of the same name by Tia Williams. It's a funny, heartfelt story about a woman named Jenna (Gabrielle Union) who, at age 40, hits rock bottom after an emotional breakup and has to ask an old rival for a job. That rival, Darcy, is played by Torres in an intimidating performance.
Though they've had their differences in the past, Darcy offers Jenna a lifeline. But things get infinitely more complicated when Jenna kisses Eric (Keith Powers), a man 15 years her junior, during a wild night out. She later discovers that he's both the company's new videographer and Darcy's son, leading to a chaotic but ultimately sweet journey. Fans of "Suits" will also enjoy seeing Torres reunited with D.B. Woodside, who played her love interest Jeff Malone in the legal drama.
"I loved the old villains of 90s nighttime soaps, so I would say that that kind of started there," Torres said of her performance in an interview with TheWrap. "But I also wanted people to be treated to her humanity as well." In the same interview, Torres praised the diversity of the film. "It's not just enough to have Black and brown and LGBTQIA and Asian characters on screen," she said. "I'm happy to say that we are now moving into an area in filmmaking and television, where we see portrayals that are full-throated, that are thoughtful, and that is what I love about this movie."
She was honored as a Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade
Fame has its perks, and for Gina Torres, one of those came in 2021 when she was named a Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. Equal parts a New Year's celebration and a lead-in to the Rose Bowl, the parade has been happening in various forms since 1890. Every year, a Grand Marshal is named by the president of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association — the group that organizes the event.
In 2020, as has happened on several rare occasions over the decades, multiple Grand Marshals were named. Torres held the honor alongside Hollywood legend Rita Moreno and Olympic gold medalist gymnast Laurie Hernandez, with the theme of the parade that year being "The Power of Hope." Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Torres shared how pleased she was to be selected as Grand Marshal. "As I've learned more and more and more about the Rose Parade, and the 936 volunteers that commit themselves every year for ... decades, it's a team," she said. "I am so honored to be part of this team."
Indeed, earning the title of Rose Parade Grand Marshal put Torres in quite illustrious company. Over the years that the event has been running, past Grand Marshals have included Shirley Temple, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Pelé, Carol Burnett, George Lucas, and, in 2022, LeVar Burton.
Torres currently stars on 9-1-1: Lone Star
Throughout her long and illustrious career, Gina Torres has often taken breaks from leading roles on television, but she's never gone for long. Her departure from "Suits" and the cancellation of "Pearson" set her back into more one-off roles, but it wasn't long before she got her next steady gig as EMS captain Tommy Vega on the Texas-based "9-1-1" spin-off series "9-1-1: Lone Star."
Torres joined the Ryan Murphy series in Season 2, with her character effectively replacing the one Liv Tyler played in Season 1. The "Lord of the Rings" alum departed the show after just one year due to COVID-19 production complications, and Torres has been a core piece of "Lone Star" ever since. She plays opposite the likes of Rob Lowe, Ronen Rubinstein, Natacha Karam, Sierra McClain, and Brian Michael Smith.
With three seasons of the show's four total under her belt and another confirmed to be on the way, "9-1-1: Lone Star" is set to become one of Torres' longest-running roles. It remains to be seen if it will last as long or become as iconic as her turn as Jessica Pearson on "Suits."
She voices Keeper Yennen on The Legend of Vox Machina
As mentioned previously, Gina Torres is a skilled voice actor and has worked in both animation and video games for decades. Her highest-profile voice role of late is probably that of Keeper Yennen on Prime Video's "The Legend of Vox Machina."
Based on the smash hit "Dungeons & Dragons" streaming sensation "Critical Role," the animated fantasy series puts a comical spin on classical genre tropes, all within the framework of core "D&D" mechanics. The main "player" characters are voiced by the same actors who portray them on the web series — an ensemble that includes Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, and Liam O'Brien, among others.
The original version of Keeper Yennen was an elderly male priest played, like most non-player characters (NPCs) in the series, by dungeon master Matthew Mercer. While Mercer does voice several major characters throughout the animated series, it would have been impractical for him to play them all. Thus, newcomers were brought in for the Prime Video adaptation, including Torres as a gender-switched version of Yennen. She's appeared in a number of episodes across the show's first two seasons, and with any luck, fans will hear her again in "The Legend of Vox Machina" Season 3.
She's spoken out frequently for better diversity in Hollywood
As an Afro-Latina actor, Gina Torres hasn't always had the easiest time navigating Hollywood. While diversity in the film and TV industries has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, things still aren't where they ought to be, and they were far worse when Torres began her career in the 1990s.
In a 2023 interview with John Leguizamo for MSNBC, Torres described how she started in theater — an artistic field where, at least for her, diversity and equity always felt like priorities. "TV, not so much," she said. "TV was trickier." She recounted how her lighter-skinned appearance and Cuban ancestry made audition rooms difficult, as she'd frequently be passed up for both Black and Latina characters. "I show up, and because I look the way I look, they're like, 'What are you?'" She told Leguizamo. "It's all about what you look like, and they did not know what the hell to do with me."
Because of her specific experiences, Torres has long been an advocate for true diversity in the entertainment industry, not just characters that are written to check a box while simultaneously playing to harmful stereotypes. To this day, she serves as a member of the National Hispanic Media Coalition's Visionary Alliance, which seeks to expand representation and build networks for Latine artists in the industry. Other members include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Luna, and Rosario Dawson.
Torres has always fought for a more equitable Hollywood, and she's walked the picket lines often during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.
Torres has been an advocate for eczema awareness
In addition to her work in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space, Gina Torres has used her platform to help raise awareness for eczema. In March 2023, she introduced the documentary "Under My Skin: Untold Stories of Life with Eczema" at the SXSW festival — a film featuring several people with eczema that aimed to show what it's really like to live with the skin condition.
Though Torres herself doesn't have eczema, it's an issue that's long been close to her heart, as she shared in an interview with People. "I understood that not everybody knew about this," she said, explaining that over the course of her life, she's had "family members and dear friends who have suffered from it for years," as well as "friends who have children who have suffered from it."
The idea of being perceived a certain way based simply on your appearance is one that has always been important to Torres, and it's informed more than just her work combating racism in the entertainment industry. "I mean, our skin is what people see, right? It's the first thing that people see," Torres said to People. "Especially as somebody who has suffered from various skin conditions over the years as well, who is on camera."
Gina Torres could return in the new Suits show
If you're a "Suits" fan, old or new, there's one project you're probably looking forward to with particular excitement. In October 2023, Deadline reported that creator Aaron Korsh has been in talks with NBCUniversal about expanding the "Suits" universe with a new series. Given that the original show went off the air five years ago, that's a pretty wild headline, but it just goes to show the new life that streaming can breathe into older franchises.
With SAG-AFTRA still on strike at the time of this writing and few details out in the open, it's hard to know what exactly a new "Suits" show could look like or when it might arrive. The Deadline report claimed that it's likely to feature an entirely new cast of characters and take place in a new city — possibly Los Angeles — while still existing in the same fictional world as the original series and "Pearson."
That means that we probably won't be seeing Jessica Pearson as a main character, but it does leave the door open for cameo appearances. Torres clearly enjoyed her time on "Suits" enough to return for her own spin-off and given her penchant for scene-stealing TV guest appearances, it's possible that she hasn't played the character for the last time.